


august slipped away into a moment in time (cause you were never mine)

by acrookedsaint



Series: the last great american dynasty [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Lots of Angst, Veronica POV, and self discovery, based on 'august', if you will, just to be clear this is NOT a varchie fic, prelude to a barchie endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25499776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrookedsaint/pseuds/acrookedsaint
Summary: She’s supposed to be the kind of girl who’s never the second choice.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: the last great american dynasty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847302
Comments: 13
Kudos: 34





	august slipped away into a moment in time (cause you were never mine)

**Author's Note:**

> haHA.
> 
> anyway as some of you may know taylor swift dropped a surprise album called folklore yesterday...and naturally i'm obsessed. this one shot is the first of four which will chronicle my take on the barchie love story (kind of?) and it doesn't really make linear sense but let's just pretend it does. i hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> as always, much love to cara for being the best there ever was. 
> 
> bonus points if you can spot references to other ts songs!!

The thing is, Veronica _knows_ she’s running on borrowed time, and it’s the kind of thing she hates. She’s supposed to be the kind of girl who’s never the second choice. She’s supposed to be the kind of girl someone loves forever, unconditionally. She’s supposed to be the kind of girl who breaks hearts and sweeps in and out of town like a hurricane, leaving emotional wreckage behind.

She’s not supposed to be the kind of girl in tears over a boy. She’s not supposed to be the kind of girl who has to hear her own boyfriend singing a love song he wrote for another girl on what is supposed to be the best night of her high school career. 

She is not supposed to be any of those things. She’s Veronica Lodge, and she’s worth more than that. 

In the end she’s just a memory, a single moment in time. A speck in a love story where she doesn’t play the starring role. 

It hurts less than she thought it would, but more than she’s ever hurt before.

* * *

She sees it subtly at first, the pulling away and the staring into space. Archie’s distant, always on another planet. 

Veronica thinks it’s just graduation blues - he’s upset that they’re all going to be leaving Riverdale and going their separate ways. 

But then she gets the news. Mary Andrews drops a bombshell, and Veronica has never played a part so perfectly before. 

She smiles and nods when Mary talks about Archie joining the Naval Academy. And she smiles and nods some more when she mentions a song that Archie has allegedly been working on for her. 

That’s when the fear creeps into her veins. That’s when she _knows_ , even if she doesn’t. 

It turns out that even Veronica Lodge has a long way to fall.

* * *

The thing is, it’s almost her own fault. She’d agreed to the fake dating. She’d agreed to let two people she _knew_ had feelings for each other hold hands and kiss and she’d pretended like that was normal. That it was the kind of thing that friends did for each other. _Hey B, of course you can fake date Archie so we can trick everyone into thinking Jughead’s dead. That’s a foolproof plan! What could go wrong?_

Except some things aren’t pretend. And she’s been running on borrowed time ever since she got to Riverdale, ever since she kissed Archie Andrews in a closet at Cheryl Blossom’s house.

* * *

She’s been feeling restless since August, back in the summer when everything was as perfect as it was ever going to be in Riverdale. Archie had been out of prison, back from his road trip (if one could even call it that) and back in her arms. Life had been good, _better_ than good. 

She remembered that even when she’d been dating Reggie she’d always cancelled plans, just hoping that Archie would call. She didn’t even know what she hoped he would say. That they were more than just a summer love? That he was hers, now and forever?

Maybe in the end, all she’d really wanted was to be wanted.

* * *

It’s the tapes. The godawful tapes that show her the missing piece to the puzzle. She laughs bitterly. The tapes had come back to terrorise her one last time, before she left Riverdale for good.

And at prom too, where everyone was watching, waiting for the fallout. Where everyone could see that her hands were clenched into fists and her eyes were filled with tears, even if they didn’t know why. 

It had been shoved into her locker haphazardly. She frowned at it, contemplating her next move. And then she’d made a split second decision. 

She’d watched it. She was only human, after all. 

And then she’d watched it again, and again, and again. 

And then she’d walked back to the gym in a haze, hearing Archie’s act being announced over the speakers. 

And when she hears him singing the song, she _knows_. She knows that her worst fears have come true and that her time is finally up. 

And even in the fallout, when she makes vague accusations but can’t quite let the words form on her tongue, she has a sinking feeling in her gut. 

A feeling that tells her why she’s not surprised and why she’s angry that she’s not surprised and why she’s laughing like a madwoman, her face wet with tears. 

Because maybe, deep down, she’d known, right from that very first day, that Archie wasn’t hers, not really. He’d always belonged to someone else. He’d always _wanted_ to belong to someone else. 

He was never hers to lose in the first place.

Maybe that’s why it hurts so much.

* * *

Archie breaks it off carefully, like she’s glass and she might shatter. Veronica wants to tell him that she broke a long time ago, in August, when she realised that some things weren’t meant to last, even if she was the happiest she’d ever been 

In the end she lets him go without a fuss. In the end there’s no point in fighting for someone who doesn’t want to be fought for.

Instead, she arms herself with the only weapons she has at her disposal - the ability to get up again. 

Veronica Lodge straightens her spine and paints on a smile. She puts on her highest heels and draws her mascara into sharp points. She strides through the halls of Riverdale High with a mission: to make the most of her final days of freedom. 

She doesn’t crack and she doesn’t break, but she doesn’t smile either. 

She’s not better, but she’s not worse.

At least she’s no one’s second choice anymore.

* * *

Years later, she gets an invitation in the mail, and she wants to laugh at how cliche it is. Of course she’s invited to the wedding of not quite high school sweethearts Betty Cooper and Archie Andrews. 

She attends, because how can she not? She once had a supporting role in their epic love affair, after all. 

At the reception she sits in the shadows and nurses the same drink she’s been nursing all night, collecting her thoughts and musing quietly to herself about the strange routes that her life has taken. 

She thinks back to August, of how happy she was, of how free she was. Now, she’s not sure if it was because of Archie or because she’d finally realised who she was, regardless of her relationship status. 

It slips away, just another moment in time. 

Veronica turns to watch Archie as he leads his new bride out onto the dance floor. And she has a thought that hasn’t occurred to her in a long, long time. 

It doesn’t taste so bitter anymore. 

_You were never mine_. 

This time, she smiles. She’s no longer living for the hope of it all. Now, she’s living for herself. 

She’s still changing for the better.

But this time?

This time it’s enough. 


End file.
